India's journey on the path of economic reforms has transformed it to one of the world's fastest growing economies. Its large and growing population is its best asset and can quadruple GDP and catapult India to the league of developed economies over the next decade. All this if a billion could be transformed into a productive workforce.

For over half a decade now, India has been chanting the demographic mantra with little real progress. Because, with opportunities come challenges. The services sector needs many million knowledge workers. Lack of employability is endemic. India's large labour force has been stubborn in transition. Over 90% of the labour force is inadequately trained.

Jobs continue to be created, needing an educated workforce and many in sunrise sub-sectors. We need to recognise new opportunities and prepare the supply side. Let us take a quick look at five existing sectors that are likely to hold us in good stead in the future in terms of employment generation and business growth.

According to Mr. Shajan Samuel Divisional Head IIJT Education, “The IIJT job fair generated more than 150 walk-in and 37 candidates were offered shortlisted. The unique feature of IIJT job fair is to synchronize candidate profiles and match with actual job profile. We ensured that students who meet the criteria pertaining to job profile only attend the interview so that there are fewer disappointed students. Even though IIJT Education does the Job fair every month , the response from Participating Companies and students have been gone up considerably , we had to refuse some companies , due to lack of time and space , companies have now started booking their availability one month in advance , so over a period of time we want candidates and companies to look no further than the IIJT Job fair , for Companies to get the right Candidates and Student to get the right Job.”

Speaking about the job fairs he also added that “Job fairs are an effort to link candidates to the right job and the response to the job fair clearly demonstrates the acute employability problem the industry is currently grappling with.”

Bangalore: Macro economic uncertainties and turbulence in global markets have taken a toll on the recruitment sentiments of the Indian IT/ITeS sector in the last two to three months.

Attrition levels at top IT firms have dropped, to their lowest levels in several quarters for some, signaling a slowdown in hiring of increasingly expensive mid to senior level IT professionals. Although these companies are attributing the fall to improved retention strategies, steep drops in activity witnessed by top job portals and recruitment firms paint a different picture.

In the second quarter ended September, attrition for Infosys on a last twelve months trailing (LTM) basis was at 15.6%, the least in a year. For TCS attrition fell to 13.7% for the quarter, down from 14.8% q-o-q and 14.1% y-o-y, while attrition for HCL Technologies remained almost flat compared to last quarter at 16.7%. Mid-tier firm MindTree reported a sharp drop in attrition...to 21.7%, compared to 25.6% in the previous quarter.

Lateral hiring figures for Q2FY12 have also exhibited tell tale signs. Infosys recruited 2,318 lateral employees, compared to 4,044 in the previous quarter and 4,138 a year ago, the lowest it has done in five quarters. TCS hired 8,125 or 40% of its total 20,349 recruits laterally. In the previous quarter, close to 65% of its gross additions of 11,988 were laterals.

E Balaji, MD and CEO of recruitment major Ma Foi Randstad says, “Opportunities have dried up to an extent over the past two to three months. Both companies and employees have become risk averse. Nobody is taking any chances. We have seen almost an 8% drop y-o-y in IT/ITeS recruitment activity.”

According to staffing agency TeamLease Services’ Employment Outlook Report for the Oct-Dec quarter, the sector has shed 7 points on the employment sentiment index compared to the previous quarter,...

The employment outlook for Bangalore for the October-December quarter has seen a downward movement. It has dipped by 9 points and stands at 79 points. This was in contrast to the employment outlook for the July-September quarter when everything seemed to be looking up. The economic woes dogging the western economies seems to have had their impact on many of the firms.

According to the latest TeamLease Employment Outlook Report (EOR), the October-December 2011 quarter has shown a dip in hiring across most major cities in India. The three point dip in the index which now stands at 71 per cent from the earlier 74 per cent is due to a substantially higher percentage of respondents indicating they would have no change in hiring this coming quarter. Almost proportionately, there was a fall in the numbers that indicated they would increase hiring and the index fell a couple of percentage points above the year’s low.

The stable atmosphere of employment and business sentiment built over the past three quarters has been belied by sentiments expressed by respondents for the present quarter. There was an across-the-board drop in indices — the Employment and Business Outlook indices (3 percentage points each), as well as across most cities and sectors. And the drops are significant enough (up to 9 points) to signal extreme caution in job markets over the immediate next quarter.

Sangeeta Lala, Sr V-P, TeamLease Services, said, “Though the employment index has witnessed a dip, we are hopeful that this dip is only temporary. All sectors are growing, though at a slower rate, and hence employees want to hold on to their jobs preferring stability.”

The discreet signs that a few sectors like the IT and ITeS exhibited last quarter have proved to be contagious this coming quarter. IT has pressed the panic button with a 7-point drop in the employment sentiment and an 8-point drop in business sentiment.

The brunt of a sentiment swing, possibly due to concerns about the global economy, is borne by two of the most premium of all functional areas: IT (6 points down) and engineering (4 points down.

Despite Maruti Suzuki's issues with contract labour at its Manesar plant, India Inc is upbeat on temp hiring, for both strategic and economic reasons.

All leading IT firms have increased their temp hiring (contract staffing) by almost 20 per cent this year. Some 10-20 per cent of employees in companies such as Infosys, Wipro or TCS would be temp workers, according to staffing industry sources.

A retail giant with over 25,000 employees has started replacing some of its frontline staff with temp workers. HR analysts say that in retail, temp hiring has jumped by almost 45 per cent.

This year, the six-lakh temp workforce in India is expected to grow 20-25 per cent over 2010. “Companies are using temp staffing as a risk-hedging measure, which gives them the flexibility to achieve the desired growth,” points out Mr E. Balaji, CEO, Ma Foi Consulting.

During the downturn, most companies went through the painful adjustment process of headcount reduction. “With market uncertainties, many of them are resorting to temping to be prepared for future crisis,” he says.

Mr Vipul Prakash, Vice-President, Indian Staffing Federation, an apex body of staffing companies in the country, sees brighter opportunities for the temp sector during a period of “dull global economic recovery”.

In addition to hiring, companies are also depending on staffing firms to manage their compliance, says Mr Prakash, who is also the Director, Gi Staffing Services Pvt Ltd.

Mr Mohit Gupta, Co-founder and Director, TeamLease Services, says that in today's business space, temp staff is both a strategic and an operational necessity.

Temp staff gives the flexibility to manage the unexpected business demand, seasonal manpower requirement, quicker scaling with tested/productive workforce, trial run to convert from temp-to-perm seamlessly and more importantly long-term cost benefits.

Studies show that temp hiring is predominant in IT, telecom and BFSI sector.

However, other sectors like FMCG, retail and consumer durables are also hiring temporary staff right from entry level (fresh graduates) to CXOs for interim management positions.

“We have temps working at the minimum wage level and temps earning salaries of Rs 1-1.5 lakh a month,” says Mr Balaji.

“With market uncertainties, many companies are resorting to temping to be prepared for future crisis.”

Kolkata: The Indian Institute of Job Training, a leading vocational training provider, is holding a job fair for youth of the city with a number of job opportunities in top companies up for grabs. Entry to the job fair is free and open for all. It is scheduled for October 22 from 10 am to 5 pm. The job fair will be held at 59 C, Chowringee Road, second floor, Kolkata-700020.

Over 115 entry level positions are available in BFSI and IT/ITES for class 12 pass outs or graduates in any field. Companies such as Amrit Export, ING Vyasa Bank, Bosnet Infotech Pvt Ltd, M G Tathya Solutions Pvt Ltd and Bajaj Capital are participating in the day long fair.

IIJT also provides training to candidates in soft skills which will come after an assessment test. This allows the candidate to ensure he or she makes the best of the opportunity. IIJT has been conducting job fairs across several cities over the past few months and has received a good response from candidates and participating companies.

Corporate India is likely to witness a slowdown in hiring activity in the last quarter of this year, owing to the ongoing global economic uncertainty, but the decline is only temporary, said a report by staffing firm TeamLease.

According to the TeamLease Employment Outlook Report, there has been a dip of 3 points in the employment outlook index, which stood at 71 for the October-December quarter against from 74 in the previous quarter.

Despite economic uncertainty looming globally, we are confident of the India growth story. Though the employment index has witnessed a dip, we are hopeful that this dip is only temporary," TeamLease Services Sr VP Sangeeta Lala said.

From sectoral perspective, too, 6 out of the 8 sectors reported negative growth in the index, with the tech industry bearing the brunt.

The IT sector witnessed 6 points decline followed by engineering (4 points). Sales, marketing and customer service keeps its top position at 79 points despite a 3-point fall. There is a 2-point drop across all other functional areas, Teamlease said.

"All the sectors are growing, though at a slower rate, and hence employees want to hold on to their jobs preferring stability," Lala added.

The survey further said that junior and mid-level hiring are projected to be down 4 points each, for entry-levels there would be a 2-point loss, while senior profiles are well protected in their niche, which sees a single point drop to a stable 24 points.

A city-wise analysis shows that Delhi and Bangalore each has witnessed a 9-point drop in employment sentiment, while Pune witnessed a 8 points drop and Chennai 7 points fall. Interestingly, for Kolkata the employment index rose by 5 points.

The net business outlook also fell by three percentage points to 72% for the October-December 2011 quarter. However, the drop in sector indices for business outlook is by a lesser margin compared with the employment index, the report said.

The study, covering 620 companies in the latest round, focusses on employment growth potential, the business outlook and hiring forecasts with relation to the location and the company profile.

There was a marked dip in hiring across major cities and sectors during the October-December quarter, says a Teamlease survey.

Delhi and Bangalore saw the maximum dip in hiring sentiment, by 9 points, while Pune and Chennai dropped by 8 and 7 points, respectively, the Employment Outlook Report for October-December 2011 by the human resource supply company, released on Friday said.

Among sectors, information technology “has pressed the panic button with a 7-point drop in employment sentiment and an 8-point drop in business sentiment,” says the survey.

In fact, six out of eight sectors reported negative growth in the index, with IT, ITeS and telecom experiencing sharpest drops compared with the previous quarter. Financial services and infrastructure marginally improved.

“Though the employment index has witnessed a dip, we are hopeful that this is only temporary. All the sectors are growing, though at a slower rate, and hence employees want to hold on to their jobs preferring stability,” Ms Sangeeta Lala, Senior Vice President, TeamLease Services, said in a release.

The company releases its employment outlook every quarter after a survey conducted with HR managers and senior managements of leading companies. This survey covered 620 companies, focusing on the employment growth potential, the business outlook and hiring forecasts, the release added.